From May small businesses will need to be GDPR-ready. What does this mean?

The way companies communicate with their users, and how they handle and process the information they hold about their users, will soon need to change. This is so all company practice falls in line with new GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) guidelines. The guidelines are EU-led, but identical guidelines will almost certainly be written into post-Brexit UK legislation.

You’re probably aware of the upcoming GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) deadline (and if you’re not, you really should be). But will how you hold, share and use information be fit for purpose once that deadline has passed?

The children’s commissioner for England, Anne Longfield, has produced ‘child-friendly’ plain English versions of Facebook’s terms and conditions.

We’ve often highlighted the need to simplify online terms and conditions on platforms such as Instagram and YouTube. Many users of those sites probably still don’t realize how their images and footage might be used once posted online.

Every so often we see a list of ‘most hated jargon terms’ and job website Glassdoor have provided the latest. There are many (sadly) familiar terms on there. ‘Touch base’, ‘Blue-sky thinking’, and ‘Thought shower’, to name three, continue to thrive among office dullards.

Why are these awful terms so enduring? We think there are two main reasons.

For many years we’ve struggled to influence the language of the courts. Legal language is still very much how it’s always been – largely archaic, Latin-heavy and pretty much impenetrable to non-experts.

There’s never been a justifiable excuse for this – just as there’s absolutely no reason why barristers and solicitors don’t use plain English rather than language very few can understand. But perhaps changes are finally afoot.

Supporters often contact us to complain about horrific terms and conditions. A recent report from the Children’s Commissioner for England provides a perfect example of why companies often hide behind gibberish.

The Commissioner, appointed by the Government to ‘represent the interests of young people’, presented their findings as part of their ‘growing up digital’ campaign. The Commissioner lays out their aims with the following statement.